Chapter 54

May 31st, 1997

The Hospital wing was quiet at night, you could hear a pin drop or the sound of Hermione's muggle trainers squeaking as she snuck inside far after curfew.

She smoothed Draco's hair back out of his face and whispered words of love before sneaking back out to help Theo work on the Vanishing Cabinet. She hoped Draco knew she was there, that he hadn't been forgotten, that they needed him to get well. She couldn't linger as long as she wished.

The Dark Lord's mission had to be fulfilled and time was running out.

The first thing that Draco realised when he woke up was that he wasn't dead and the second thing was that he wasn't lying in water drenched in his own blood. Finally, he became aware that breathing was deeply painful.

What had happened? He winced in pain.

Blood. Blood. Blood. So much blood. It wasn't stopping. He was going to die in the loo. The burst pipes rained water down on him, obscuring the tears that he was crying.

Hermione. Theo.

He hoped they knew that he loved them.

He hoped they would take care of each other.

Draco shook off the jarring flashback, struggling with the fact that he wasn't actually dead. He shifted slightly and the lingering scent of Hermione's perfume was on his pillow. She must have been here in the hospital wing checking on him. He hoped that she and Theo hadn't been too worried about him. If he had been going to die, he thought that he would have been dead already.

"You nearly did die," his godfather's voice came from the darkness near the divider around his bed. Draco tried to sit up to be respectful to his Head of House, but involuntarily groaned at the pain that radiated through him at the attempt. "For Salazar's sake, lay down Draco."

Draco nodded and grimaced. Snape stepped forward and held a vial to Draco's lips. As he swallowed, warmth suffused his body, subduing the pain enough that he could breathe without agony.

"If it hadn't been for your bond with Nott, you'd be dead," Snape checked Draco's bandages carefully. "He came to me the moment he realised that you'd been cursed."

Draco looked up into his godfather's stern face in surprise. "Theo felt it when I was cursed?"

Snape nodded. "And Miss Granger was ready to kill Mr. Potter with her bare hands. She refrained, which is good as that would have been difficult to explain. You'll be pleased to know that he has detention with me for the rest of the year and won't be allowed to play Quidditch."

"He's banned from Quidditch?" Draco choked back a dark laugh. "For nearly killing me? That sounds about right. I'll return the favour one of these days."

"I wager Miss Granger will likely beat you to it and I doubt that Potter will ever see it coming." Draco could have sworn that he heard a note of delight in Snape's voice, but his godfather's face was as stern as ever.

After the second day of being awake, Draco couldn't take being in the hospital wing any longer. He snuck out on silent feet, making his way carefully past all the gossiping portraits until he reached the Come and Go Room.

He hoped more than anything that his beloveds were inside. He needed them. Theo had been shooed away by Pomfrey while Draco had pretended to nap in order to avoid being drugged senseless again. He preferred to grit through the pain as he recovered, as he hated feeling helpless and vulnerable; the last thing he needed was for someone to find his Dark Mark while he was unconscious.

Theo had never managed to make it all the way to Draco's bedside. The fresh scent of Hermione's curls still lingered on his blanket, but he didn't know how Hermione had managed to get close to him while he slept. She had to have come more than once and yet he hadn't seen her at all since he had been awake either. He missed them so much. He needed to touch them; the bond was painful beneath his skin.

The stones were cold beneath his bare feet, but he didn't cast a warming charm, desperate to conserve his already waning energy.

He knocked on the wall, visualising what he needed more than anything, his Theo and his Hermione.

He found them working on the Vanishing Cabinet, an endearing smudge on Theo's cheekbone made him stop and watch them both discuss what needed to happen next to make the thrice blasted thing work again. From their conversation, Draco inferred that they were further along than before he'd been cursed.

"Looks like you two have been busy," Draco said when there was finally a lull in the conversation.

Theo and Hermione spun toward him, curls flying, eyes wide.

"Draco!" Hermione cried, rushing forward and throwing her arms around him so tightly that he thought that he might collapse under her weight, despite the fact that she was so petite. He was terribly weak and he hated it, hated himself, hated how he'd allowed Potter to do this to him.

Theo's hand cradled his cheek while Draco's arms encircled Hermione.

"How are you? What are you doing here? Did Pomfrey release you?" The witch began rapidly firing off questions.

"I've been better, and no Pomfrey didn't release me, I snuck out of the hospital wing," Draco answered with a sigh, prepared for her response.

"Draco! You shouldn't have left if you're still not well!" Hermione reprimanded but hugged him a little tighter, as if afraid of losing him. He winced a bit, still feeling a bit tender.

"I know, but I just had to see you both, I need to be near you," Draco said. Whether it was from the swell of emotions or his weakened state, Draco swayed on his feet. But his loves caught him and guided him to the bed they always shared, laying him down gently and inspecting his body.

Hermione gasped when she saw the bandages under his nightshirt, her eyes watering with sorrow and then filling with fury.

He could imagine the vengeful thoughts that were churning in her head and he was grateful he was not on the receiving end of her plans.

"You'll be better in no time, Dragon," Theo reassured, his hand stroking Draco's cheek.

"Promise?" Draco asked, his voice cracking as the pain shot through him. She pulled back slightly, staring at him in fear.

"I promise," Theo replied, his blue eyes watching Draco with concern.

"We both promise," Hermione agreed, her hands still caressing him, though more gently now. "We'll get through this together."

June 30, 1997

The sun never reached inside the Room of Requirement, but the cold of the predawn was in Draco's bones. Or perhaps it was the fact that the little bird had come back from Borgin intact and alive. That meant it was only a matter of time until Death Eaters stormed the castle. They would likely come at night, probably tonight. They would have come now if it wasn't nearly four in the morning. He placed the bird in its cage. He'd let it go later from the Astronomy tower. It deserved a chance at freedom. Draco looked over at his loves, both sound asleep with books in front of them, leaning against one of the other cabinets that filled the Room. Theo's arms were wrapped around Hermione and her head was on Theo's shoulders. He should have carried them to one of the many beds that had been scattered around hours ago. They would probably wake up sore.

Walking over to them, Draco knelt down to scoop up Hermione, her beautiful curls smelling of coconut and gardenias. She had changed her soap recently. He wasn't sure if he liked it yet or not, but that certainly didn't matter now, because she would be going. Her curls, her scent, her swotty self…half of his heart, his soulmate, leaving soon to go on the run with the Chosen One and his bumbling sidekick. They'd never find the Horcruxes and destroy them without her help. They were simply inept and couldn't be counted on to save the world.

Draco hated doing things for the greater good, it simply wasn't in his nature. If he and Theo hadn't been marked by that psychopath, they would have taken Hermione and run. He still would if he knew a way to ignore a summons. He had considered cutting off his forearm, but it was not a price he wanted to pay in case the Dark Magic was embedded in his blood. He'd hate to lose his casting arm to get back at the Dark Lord and have it be for nothing.

He settled Hermione into the canopy bed where they had made love for the first time. Draco cast a warming charm inside the covers to keep her comfortable while she was briefly alone and then went back for Theo.

He considered waking his boyfriend but instead cast a feather light charm on him and lifted him easily into his arms. Theo had gained height and muscle this year as he started to lose the androgynous lines of his early teens. Draco loved Theo's changing body, as he loved everything about Theo. He ran his hand lightly over his left sleeve. He loved everything except that Theo had taken the Dark Mark so that they wouldn't be separated. Draco wished more than anything that could have been avoided.

Draco put Theo on the other side of the bed, leaving space for himself in the middle. He removed the feather light charm and Theo sank into the pillow, his weight restored. Draco crawled into the centre of the bed and pulled the big, thick quilt over the three of them. He shifted both of them a little closer to him, he wanted to feel their warmth for a little while before everything went to shite.

He tried to memorise the pattern of their breathing. Running his fingers through each of their curls, he knew he ought to wake them, but he simply couldn't bear it. He pulled Theo's hand to his lips and inhaled the sweet scent of clove cigarettes before placing a kiss on his fingertips.

Draco wanted to stay awake and appreciate the love that he had found in secret, two and a half years of the three of them. Their love and the strength of their soulbond only grew over that time.

Losing the battle against sleep, Draco's last exhausted thought was that their time together had just run out, but it was going to be okay in the end. It simply had to be. He would die before he gave up hope.

In their sleep, the three of them became a tangle of hair, legs and searching hands as though they were trying to merge together. And perhaps they were.

The Gryffindor common room only had a few people absorbed in their own activities, they didn't even notice Hermione and the careful way she carried the two cups of tea that she'd diligently adulterated to keep two lions out of the way tonight.

Smiling, Hermione handed Harry and Ron the drugged cups of tea. It wasn't too strong, they wouldn't fall asleep where they sat, but they soon tired of their game of wizards' chess and headed up to their dorm. Hermione watched them go from her place next to the fire with a book. She stared at the flames and prayed to all the gods of wizards and Muggles that everything tonight went according to their carefully wrought plans.

All she could do now was cast the wards to keep anyone from leaving the dormitory and wait. She rubbed her ring and ran a hand over her shirt where she could feel the coin that hung there. The bond thrummed with nervousness and impending violence. Waiting was harder than it sounded.

The wind wasn't out of the ordinary for the Scottish highlands, but Draco couldn't help but find it ominous as he and Theo walked to the designated point to greet the violent hoard that they'd be letting into the castle tonight.

Draco and Theo waited in the Come and Go Room, a clock ticking somewhere in the chaos that surrounded them. Draco wondered if the bed just out of sight still smelled of Hermione's arousal. He already missed her.

When Greyback walked out of the Vanishing Cabinet, his nostrils flared with a deep inhale and a hungry grin stretched across his face. Draco wondered if he'd made a big mistake not burning the bedding beforehand.

The thought of Greyback smelling Hermione made Draco see red. Good thing he was supposed to kill a man tonight.

"Keep your face covered," Draco murmured to Theo, who nodded, sliding his Death Eater mask over his face. Their eyes met and Draco wasn't sure how he felt about his beloved's face hidden behind that mask with its carved designs, the symbol of their shared slavery to a madman.

Draco was visible for everyone to see, not bothering to hide who he was, his ice blonde locks giving him away regardless, and he led all of them up towards the Astronomy Tower, where the final moment of truth awaited.

Theo and Hermione's safety mattered more than anything else and so for them and his mother he needed to do this.

And he hated the bloody useless excuse for a Headmaster. He'd allowed Hermione to nearly die far too many times for Draco's comfort and if he lived through tonight, Dumbledore would no doubt endanger Hermione again.

Draco pushed open the door and it was almost too easy to disarm the Headmaster, the man's wand flying into his hand as though the whole thing was choreographed. He tucked the wand into his belt, unwilling for it to be used against him.

Aunt Bella's laugh echoed from down below and the sound of duelling could be heard through the tower. The old man before Draco seemed unconcerned with the violence happening beneath them. It infuriated him, people were getting hurt and Dumbledore, who had all the power to stop it, just stood there, completely unbothered by it; it was one more mark against him in Draco's book.

"Good evening, Draco. What brings you here on this fine, summer evening?" Dumbledore's complete lack of concern despite Draco having just taken his wand, made the younger wizard grind his teeth.

"What do you think?" Draco responded with a sneer, pressing his wand to Dark Mark and hissing, "Morsmordre."

"Have you been whispering to yourself, Draco?" Dumbledore asked as though unconcerned about the huge skull and snake that now floated in the sky above him. Instead, he just regarded Draco, eyes appraising him over his half-moon glasses.

"Draco, you are no assassin," Dumbledore concluded after his assessment.

"How do you know what I am?! I've done things that would shock you!" Draco couldn't imagine that Dumbledore had any idea about Hermione, Theo and him. If he did she'd long ago have been thrown out of the Order's inner circle.

"Like cursing Katie Bell and hoping that, in return, she would bear a cursed necklace to me? Like replacing a bottle of mead with one laced with poison? Forgive me, Draco, but I cannot help feeling these actions are so weak that your heart couldn't really be in them."

Draco didn't know how Dumbledore knew it was him, but he hated that the old man was right. He hadn't wanted to kill him at first, but now he knew that he needed to do what was necessary. If Dumbledore had known what he had been tasked with, then he had done nothing to save him from the madman who had given him his mission. He offered him neither salvation nor protection. No, instead Dumbledore had done nothing to help Draco, he watched him wither from stress and pressure and hadn't really even punished Potter for using Dark Magic to nearly kill him. Draco knew he was the Dark Lord's pawn, he was uninterested in being Dumbledore's as well.

"Draco, years ago, I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Please let me help you." Dumbledore had to be kidding. If he had wanted to help Draco he would have done so a long time ago; it was too late for both of them now.

"I don't want your help! Don't you understand? I have to do this! I have to kill you! Or he's going to kill me...kill my mother, my father. Destroy everything I love. Sorry old man, Severus has already let slip that you are dying. This is a mercy killing more than anything and you and I both know it." Draco heard people coming up the stairs, Severus and Aunt Bella at least, from the sound of it.

"Seems like your time is up, Dumbledore," Draco stated, occluding strongly so that his hands didn't shake and his gaze did not show any of the last bit of reticence that he was feeling. Theo was relying on him. Hermione was relying on him. His mother was relying on him. If he failed, he was going to be killed and that simply wasn't an option. "I'm afraid we're on a bit of a tight schedule." His hand did not tremble as the green light shot out from his wand just as Bellatrix and Severus appeared. Severus' eyes widened in horror for just a moment before his expression went blank and with a flick of his own wand, he banished Dumbledore's corpse off the side of the tower.

Draco cast a wandless silencing charm on it in the next instant, not inclined to listen to the sound of the body hitting the earth from such a height.

He turned and his Aunt Bella embraced him, kissing him on the cheek. "I knew you could do it, nephew. More Black than Malfoy, clearly." She cackled as she pulled back, grinning at him with those terrible rotted black teeth.

He held his disgust within and restrained his desire to go search the grounds for Theo.

"Come, we must depart," Severus commanded, his expression severe, mouth tight. Draco only nodded and followed his godfather away from the site of his first truly Dark act.

It looked like Dumbledore had been wrong about him - his heart had been in it after all.

Theo and Draco desperately wanted to tear the castle apart to find Hermione before they departed, but they'd already said goodbye, and she'd done her part keeping Potter and Weasley out of the way as well as warding all the Gryffindors into the tower to keep them from interfering or getting themselves killed by Death Eaters. Everything had gone according to plan, and now the world would never be the same.

The boys could feel the distance they were putting between themselves and Hermione. It was as if a physical pain was eating at them, burning them from the inside out like acid. They hadn't been apart really since they'd finally solidified their bond.

This was going to be much more difficult than any of them had imagined.

The next morning when all had been revealed, the rumour mill could not decide if it had been Snape, Draco or Bellatrix Lestrange who had killed Dumbledore. The immutable fact of the matter was that the headmaster was dead.

When the wards she'd cast on the door to Gryffindor Tower had been discovered,Hermione had maintained that Dumbledore had asked her to do it and had taught her how after swearing her to secrecy. With Snape gone, there was no one to test her with legilimency, but no one doubted her for a second. It was too easy really. She was Gryffindor's Princess, her loyalty was never in doubt. She assumed this was how Peter Pettigrew had managed so much harm during the first war. Evil won because good was naive.

Dumbledore's memorial was an exercise in carefully constructed grief on her part. It wasn't Dumbledore she wept for when Fawkes alighted on her shoulder. The tears that flowed were for Draco, Theo and herself. The pain in her chest from the distance between herself and her soulmates forced more tears out of her.

And then there were the tears for the future. Things hadn't been easy until now, but everything was about to be so much worse.

There was no hiding that the war was now upon them.

Author's Note: Part of this chapter was originally a one-shot called Chrysanthemums: Chrysanthemums represent optimism and lost love. Part of the dialogue between Draco and Dumbledore was taken directly from the Half Blood Prince film. And now in the past the war rages.